Real Hurt
by Gojirob
Summary: In Hell, the two fight on forever. Needing an edge, Freddy taps a part of Jason's memory even he fears. But did the Nightmare killer finally find someplace even he shouldn't have gone? What happens when long-established truths are placed in doubt, and the worst of the worst are made to doubt all they know? Follows from Freddy Vs. Jason.


Real Hurt

by Rob Morris

They were back home in Hell, and they were pounding the crap out of each other as always.

How it happened didn't matter all that much. Krueger briefly recalled his still-living head being held by the Mama's Boy, and some military idiots descending on them, and them dying with dumb looks on their faces-and that was about it. Maybe the military lit up the area, or someone had a book or somesuch that banished the pair.

Neither Krueger nor Voorhees cared in the slightest. Their hate for each other was as great a weapon as anything either had ever wielded in life (or various levels of unlife), and it fueled them. But hate, like fear or incoherent rage, eventually loses its edge, as the system adjusts. When one's entire existence is fueled on this, the adjustment is simply that much faster, and this is true, even in Hell.

Krueger had just been batted back, sent flying head over heels, only to adjust his flight and land on his feet, ready willing and able in a fighting pose that would begin a fearsome counterattack on Voorhees, staggering even the walking brick for a time.

"Yeah-it was even fun the first nine-hundred and forty-nine times. Hockey Puck-we gotta change this out. This is more repetitive than our syndicated series. I know-that went over your head. Point being-I'm digging into your apron-string psyche. I don't care if you're afraid of cupcakes and candy corn -I need an edge to exploit."

Jason said nothing, and this was nothing new, nor did he attack, since Freddy's blather didn't involve his mother, and what was to him droning almost lulled him into a stupor.

"S'Okay-I don't need you chatty. Just need to look for any open pathways. You're a kid at heart, Brainless-and I always find what it is a kid doesn't want to face."

In fact, the master of nightmares had done this before to Jason, but these had been generalized probings based on simple things like his devotion to his mother, his prudishness about sex, and like that. What Freddy did now was risky, and actually left him open to attack.

But then, they were both in Hell.

"Ohhhh-Jason! I think I've nabbed something in that penicillin-factory you call a brain. You-wow-you REALLY don't want to look at this."

Jason suddenly moved like lightning and twirled the serial killer over his head, body-slamming him several times. But now that he had his target, Freddy merely laughed as he got back up.

"Ehhh-didja get that rabbit, Doc? Too late, kid-Freddy is in the house of pain!"

Krueger shoved his claw into the back of Jason's head, finding memory gold. Or so he thought.

"The lake again? Oh. Damn. Your drowning again? I dug deep for this shit?"

But now the two monsters saw a decidedly different scene than the one both knew so well by now.

"Again, YAWN. The other kids are circling you, and are gonna shove you in while the counselors hump. This is in the front and back of your mind? Half-wit here is a half-note song."

Inside the memory, one girl walked towards Jason, and pulled him back from the edge.

_*Jason! Counselors told us not to go too close.*_

The girl spoke clearly, but a bit oddly, and her face seemed rounded somehow. Another boy walked up, his voice also odd.

_*Jason, listen to Lisa Sue! Water cools you off, but it can make you cold forever. That's what Counselor says.*_

Monster though he was and had always been, Freddy Krueger had worked in a school long enough to know what special needs children looked and sounded like. Oddly, he had no special derisive names for their conditions and status. Those kids had always been polite, unlike most self-entitled brats.

"So you weren't the only slow kid at the camp?"

Freddy looked around as far as the memory would allow, and saw nothing but special needs children, and counselors that seemed omnipresent, if overworked.

_*What are you kids doing that close to the lake?*_

_*Counselor Bob, we told Jason what you say about the lake. But he keeps running up.*_

_*Jason! Don't make me tell your mother. She already thinks little enough of the rest of the staff here. C'mon, Pal-let's get away from this lake and go see her in the kitchen.*_

The Counselor took the three to safety, and Freddy was very badly confused. Inside the memory, Jason snuck back once more, this time unnoticed, till he tripped on a stone and started to go down. Freddy shook his head.

"So-no cruel kids, just ones like you? No sex-fueled neglecting counselors, just tired kids who were probably not paid enough? I get the rest. Your MO-errr-that lady we both know of-"

Freddy realized once more that mentioning Pamela Voorhees while dug into her obsessed son's brain was not a great idea, even for him.

"-that lady we both know of retold the tale in her own mind, and it became part of you when she brought you back. But you know the truth, right-and you fear the truth because it would make you disobedient to Ma-MA! Oh Crap."

Jason seized Freddy's claw-hand and ripped it off his wrist, then grabbed the hand out of the back of his own head. He turned Freddy around, then shoved the claw into the same location on Freddy's head.

"Sorry, PUCK! Doing this means exactly Jack and Shit to me, and Jack left town...what's that?"

Now Freddy saw a familiar event play out in an unfamiliar way. Police Officer Don Thompson had his hands outreached in a non-threatening manner.

_*Fred, we know you're sick. That time in combat made you mentally ill. We know you didn't want to hurt those kids. You're a good man, Fred. But you need help.*_

"What the hell is this? Thompson, you moron! This is the part where you say the law just left the room!"

_*C'mon, Fred. The judge declared you incompetent to stand trial. That opens up all kinds of avenues of treatment for you. Think of Amanda. Your daughter just wants her Daddy back.*_

"It wasn't like this. I stood proudly, and told them just what I'd do to their brats. That's when they lit...the match?"

Inside the memory, Fred Krueger stood before the crowd urging him to turn himself in. He was shaking and sweating, while holding a can of oil in one hand and a lighter in the other.

_*I'm not going into any stinking psych ward-that's for shirkers! I'll burn first!*_

Jason collapsed, while Freddy willed himself back together. Weakened, he again stabbed into the back of Jason's head, taking a piece of brain, and then twisted his own arm back and stabbed himself in the same location, again taking a piece of brain.

"Tell ya what, Mister Voorhees. That whole bit could have been Hell messing with us for fun. One the one hand, it really doesn't fit with what else we know. But on the other, maybe we saw things the way we wanted to, even when up there doing our thing, and even when we talked with others. But either way -"

He tossed the brain pieces, real or imagined, into the flames around them.

"-I like my origins the way they're supposed to be, and I'm gonna guess you're with me on this. Because, as much as we hate each other, one thing brings us together. Guys like us, we don't do that whole reality thing. Too complicated."

Claw met flesh (if either could really be said to have bodies) and fist pounded scarred head in the depths of Hell, one an obsessed killing machine that could never die, and one a fear-demon former serial killer executed by a vigilante mob, and this was all they were, and this was the way they liked it, if in fact they liked anything at all.


End file.
